==Phrack Inc.==
Volume Three, Issue 28, File #2 of 12
==Phrack Pro-Phile XXVIII==
Created and Written by Taran King
Done on September 23, 1989
Welcome to Phrack Pro-Phile XXVIII. Phrack Pro-Phile
was created to bring information to you, the community, about
retired or highly important/ controversial people. This issue,
we bring you a long time member of the hacking community and a
charter member of the Legion Of Doom...
Erik Bloodaxe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Handle: Erik Bloodaxe
Call Him: Chris
Handle Origin: "Vikings" by ? (Don't remember)
Date Of Birth: 20 years ago
Current Age: 20
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 130
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Brown
Blood Type: A+
Sperm Count: 3
Computers: Atari 400, various dumb terminals, CompuAdd Turbo XT
Origins in Phreak/Hack World
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Way back when he was in 7th grade, some 8+ years back, Erik was
quite a shoplifter. As was the norm for 13 year-olds, he and a
friend of his had stolen a stack of "girlie" magazines on one of
their "raids." One of these was High Society, which was toying
with the idea of "recorded entertainment." His friend was
determined to hear this, but as the number was in New York, they
decided to use the "strange phone service" his mother had signed
up for to keep down the bill. He explained it to Erik, "You dial
this number and then tell the operator your number and the phone
number." They called it and told the operator a number that was
100 off by mistake. The operator said "Thank you," and the call
went through. Thus was born a "code-abuser." They kept this
information to themselves for several months. When the service
changed to an automated format (rather than operator service),
they began to share their knowledge. Word spread like wildfire.
Interestingly enough, to this day, he can still backtrack 95% of
all hacker-related code abuse from San Antonio back to himself as
the originator of the information (well, a friend of a friend of
a friend, etc..)
Origins in Phreak/Hack BBSes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A friend of Bloodaxe's father bought a MicroModem II to get
information from Dialog for his legal practice. He still
remembers the first time he used it. His friend's dad used
Dialog through Telenet. Once he saw Telenet, he began trying
various addresses. One of the first things he ever did was get
into a 212 VAX/VMS with GUEST/GUEST. Erik had absolutely no idea
what he was doing. They were just guessing... typing things like
"hello?", "catalog", and assorted other inane things. They also
called a few BBSes that came with the modem instructions (using
their long-distance trick). By the end of the weekend, they had
worked their way to Pirates' Harbor (now TIMECOR) in 617, and
Pirates' Cove 516. From then on, he was hooked on modems. Then,
Wargames came out. Embarrassing as it is for Erik, Wargames
really did play a part in imbedding the idea of computer
"hacking" in his little head. (As it did for hundreds of others
who are too insecure to admit it.) He had his little Atari 400,
but no modem (Hayes 300's were still hundreds of dollars).
Another friend got an Atari Acoustic Coupler for his 800. Born
now were the Atari Warez D00dz. For about a year, they did
nothing but call Atari BBSes (and anything that had "Pirate" in
its name). They did stumble onto things like the Phone Booth in
303, OSUNY (on an OHIO Scientific, days before it went down), and
Mines of Moria (713). Finally, he got an MPP modem. Bloodaxe
was on it day and night. By this time they got into scanning.
He was the one who checked everything out, as he was the one who
was reading up on computer OSes at the UTSA library. They were
still big into games, and they ran across a really new game
called Behind Jaggi Lines. A guy named Devious Xevious traded
them something called Software Blue Box for it, and gave them a
BBS to call: Pirate-80. In 1983, Erik Bloodaxe entered the
hack/phreak world. He was blue boxing most of his calls by then.
People in the Phreak/Hack World Met
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bloodaxe has only met a handful "face-to-face," but has spoken
with almost everyone around in the "golden-years," as he was
heavily into conferences.
Experience Gained In the Following Ways
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mainly trial and error. He would find a system, try to get in
with simplistic username/password pairs, and then read help. He
also reads a lot. He didn't speak out until he was sure of what
he was talking about. Erik never asked any questions, but always
listened. During the time he was a true "novice," he kept it
fairly hidden, because he didn't want to seem stupid.
Chris attributes the knowledge he has gained to himself.
Memorable Phreak/Hack BBSes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pirate-80 (He still call to check in on Scott)
Sherwood Forest I, II, III
RACS III (Tuc wouldn't let him on until years after he first called!!)
Plovernet (Before and after the move)
COPS (Where he got mail from Lex telling him to call Legion of Doom)
WOPR (Getting closer to what BBSes would become)
Hacknet (217)
Legion of Doom (The ultimate in BBSes at the time)
Crystal Palace (OSUNY lives again!)
Newsnet (Yes, Sir Knight's BBS)
Blottoland (Lair of the rodents)
Ripco (A looooooong time ago, certainly not now)
The Broadway Show ("Well, Mike was a little off, but so what.")
Farmers of Doom! (Run from a pay phone, complete chaos)
The Connection (A good private BBS)
Catch-22 (A "better" private BBS)
The Pipeline (718)
Freeworld II
Executive Inn (Re-instilled his faith in BBSes)
The Phoenix Project (What he would want his BBS to equal or
surpass in quality)
Black Ice (A big leak; ask anyone at the Ameritech security
convention)
Pure Nihilism (Too much fun!)
Schooling/Work
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris is currently struggling as a Computer Science major at
University of Texas in Austin with intentions of a PhD,
specializing in AI research.
Accomplishments
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Project Educate: Was supposed to replace TAP after Tuc got fed
up. No one really knows what happened to it.
LOD/H TJ: Assorted work, major distributor.
Numerous files.
Phreak/Hack Groups
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LOD - In the original recruitment group, still in, still active.
What more can be said? "LOD!" basically sums it all up.
Camorra - Erik still gets mad about this. He was asked by the
602 Scorpion to join a group that was being formed. He
agreed, and he then came up with Camorra as a name.
The other members were Ax Murderer and 301 Executioner.
He got Dr. Who, Silver Sabre, and Pit Fiend to join and
Karl Marx, Tuc, and Videosmith were kind of
in/out-not-really-into-groups-but-we'll-hang-out kind
of members. Most of them were deep into their
phones/computers. They were planning a series of
files, such as the first Tymnet directory, a great
COSMOS file, a database of scans, etc. Suddenly people
began appearing in the group that no one voted on. The
group kind of split up into two factions, "us and
them." Bloodaxe and Dr. Who just got mad and blew it
all off. Pit Fiend got busted, and the Scorpion
disappeared.
Interests
~~~~~~~~~
Packet networks (all), telco computers, Unixes, scanning (every night for
almost 5 years!)
Favorite Things
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beer--Tsing Tao, Michelob Dry, Coors Light. (He am in college, you know!)
Ecstasy--Grinding away (His teeth and his mind).
Getting into a system on the first try.
Unprotected crontab files.
Scanning. Anything, for anything, just doing it!
A certain shapely 5'2" blonde who shall remain nameless.
Most Memorable Experiences
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alliance Teleconferencing way back when. Tandem scanning out
other sites in Houston and Dallas. Transferring control to
directory assistance ACD loops, and leaving it there until he
wanted to run one. Waking up the next morning and yelling into
the phone at everyone else who had stayed on the conference and
starting to talk again. Conferences that lasted a week.
Catching Draper in lies. Busying out all the 408 DA's. Boxing
on a conference and trunking Karl Marx. Calling random numbers
in California and adding them in if they sounded like teenage
girls. "Giving" people unlimited trial usage of a "new" long
distance service (LOD Telecommunications). Jennifer, the
Alliance operator who had it out for him ("This is that
Bloody-axe person isn't it?").
The Wharton School of Business Dec-10. For nearly a month all
the nation's top phreaks and hackers hung out on this system and
used the chat program. It was "the" place to be (kind of like an
Altger Altos of the past, but no idiots). Finally they killed
the account, not because of abuse, but because they were loading
the system down. The students and operators were really cool
about the whole thing.
Finding (and spreading around everywhere) the White House Signal
number. A number of my friends kept calling it, posing as the
mayor of San Antonio, Henry Cisneros, eventually causing the
Secret Service call our high school, and telling the
administrators to grab the people using the payphone to find out
what the hell they were trying to do.
Taking down almost every BBS in Alaska when he was denied access
to one. He pulled the poor kid's parents credit report, sent a
copy to the kid over his modem, and disconnected the kid's phone,
electricity, and water. He then went around taking down the
BBSes where the kid had friends (guilt by association). Word got
around the nation kind of fast. Erik got on most BBSes without
much trouble after all that. He had a project to be on at least
one BBS in every area code. Bloodaxe had to get on
non-hack/pirate ones in a few areas, but he managed to do it. He
stayed active on all of them for several months. At one time, he
was on about 140 BBSes!!!
Reading a new edition of Newsweek with a story by Richard Sandza
in it over a very crowded conference, then suggesting that he
should get some Slim Whitman albums and Civil War Chess Sets via
his Visa. Erik pulled his history, to scare him, but lost it.
When he pulled it later, there were nearly 100 inquiries, most by
a certain Massachusetts Bank. At least they gave him a good
source for a follow-up article.
Finding out that a certain long distance service (reselling AT&T
WATS) would reset to a WATS dialtone when 2600 was blasted and
then setting up a program to call MTV's 900 number repeatedly to
ensure that Duran Duran would get severely beaten.
Bloodaxe remembers boxing up a conference while waiting for the
police to come, and fighting the impulse to run away. He had
tickets carded to Philadelphia International on a flight that
afternoon (on the conference), and Telenet Bob was ready to meet
Erik's flight, Mark Tabas was ready to send him a blank birth
certificate, not to mention offers to stay with Dr. Who or
Telenet Bob for as long as he needed to get settled. Karl Marx
talked him out of it though. He was packed and ready to leave
and become a new person in a new city. Looking back, he's DAMN
glad he didn't do it!
Bloodaxe and Who-Bob deciding one fateful day to see if they
could talk to each other's port on Telenet using an ID they had
used for the LOD Telenet directory.
Some People to Mention
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Who -- "My closest hacker counterpart. We joke about being
60 with grandchildren, still having never met, calling
each other daily, with stories about how we just
defeated some ISDN service."
The Mentor -- "My favorite drinking buddy. The first hacker I
ever met face-to-face."
Control C -- "One person who can almost equal me in outrageous
behavior. Yes, Dan, I said almost! Nyahh Nyahh!"
Inside Jokes
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lame, Lame, Lame
LEGION OF DOOM IN DALLAS...FEDS BAFFLED
Serious Section
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris makes it a point to make huge filibusters on boards where
he sees anything having even anything remotely related to
carding. Credit card fraud truly gives hacking a bad name.
Snooping around a VAX is just electronic voyeurism... carding a
new modem is just flat out blue-collar crime. It's just as bad
as breaking into a house or kicking a puppy! He does everything
he can (even up to turning off a number) to get credit
information taken off a BBS. He also tries to remove codes from
BBSes. He doesn't see code abuse in the same light as credit
card fraud, (although the law does), but posted codes are the
quickest way to get your board busted, and your computer
confiscated. People should just find a local outdial to wherever
they want to call and use that. If you only make local calls
from an outdial, it will never die, you will keep out of trouble,
and everyone will be happy.
Marijuana, cocaine, LSD, MDMA (& analogs), and methamphetamine
should be legalized and sold in a controlled fashion, regulated
by the government. Money spent currently on combatting drug
traffic should be spent on the deficit, and on drug education and
rehabilitation. Making petty vices illegal only breeds crime;
look at prohibition, look at gambling, look at how fast people go
on the highway. You cannot fight a losing battle, and therefore,
must take on a new strategy. Alcohol is the only drug he has
ever imbibed and lost all consciousness and complete control of
his actions. He thinks it is THE most dangerous drug around, and
anyone can get as much of it as they want with very little
effort. It is legal, but not everyone drinks. If marijuana was
legal not everyone would smoke it. He wouldn't for one; he hates
it. However, farmers would no longer lose their farms; and most
importantly, the economy would be boosted greatly. Things have
got to change.
Are Phreaks/Hackers You've Met Generally Computer Geeks?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Of course not. There are some that are, but generally there is
an average sampling of the general population. Hacking is just
another hobby. Most people who collect comic books are not all
the same, most people who play backgammon are not similar in
physical characteristics either. The closest stereotype he could
ever even say existed was 6 or so years ago, and that would be
that most hackers then were Jewish and from New York state. An
obnoxious Texan WASP like Chris really stood out.
Thanks for your time, Chris.
Taran King
________________________________________________________________